Issue 37, 2018

Boosting the thermoelectric performance of p-type heavily Cu-doped polycrystalline SnSe via inducing intensive crystal imperfections and defect phonon scattering

Abstract

In this study, we, for the first time, report a high Cu solubility of 11.8% in single crystal SnSe microbelts synthesized via a facile solvothermal route. The pellets sintered from these heavily Cu-doped microbelts show a high power factor of 5.57 μW cm−1 K−2 and low thermal conductivity of 0.32 W m−1 K−1 at 823 K, contributing to a high peak ZT of ∼1.41. Through a combination of detailed structural and chemical characterizations, we found that with increasing the Cu doping level, the morphology of the synthesized Sn1−xCuxSe (x is from 0 to 0.118) transfers from rectangular microplate to microbelt. The high electrical transport performance comes from the obtained Cu+ doped state, and the intensive crystal imperfections such as dislocations, lattice distortions, and strains, play key roles in keeping low thermal conductivity. This study fills in the gaps of the existing knowledge concerning the doping mechanisms of Cu in SnSe systems, and provides a new strategy to achieve high thermoelectric performance in SnSe-based thermoelectric materials.

Graphical abstract: Boosting the thermoelectric performance of p-type heavily Cu-doped polycrystalline SnSe via inducing intensive crystal imperfections and defect phonon scattering

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
31 may 2018
Accepted
28 iyl 2018
First published
30 iyl 2018
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2018,9, 7376-7389

Boosting the thermoelectric performance of p-type heavily Cu-doped polycrystalline SnSe via inducing intensive crystal imperfections and defect phonon scattering

X. Shi, K. Zheng, M. Hong, W. Liu, R. Moshwan, Y. Wang, X. Qu, Z. Chen and J. Zou, Chem. Sci., 2018, 9, 7376 DOI: 10.1039/C8SC02397B

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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